MERMAIDS: fantastic sorceresses, the imperfection of human nature

Mermaids Lenci …

“Undine” by Beatrice Brandini

From Satan or from God, who cares? Angel or Siren, who cares if you – fairy-eyed velvet, scent, light, my only queen – make the universe less hideous, these instants less serious … Charles Baudelaire, Hymn to Beauty

Life cover, 1931

I find the Sirens a magnificent iconographic subject, all of them are interesting and unique, from the mystery of their origin, appearance hybrid (but at the same time feminine and charming), the mythological legend, the charmer who exercised their power on sailors and anyone came across.

Frederic Leighton “The Fisherman and the Mermaid” 1858

Fred Appleyard “Pearls and kisses”

John William Waterhouse ‘A Mermaid “, 1900

One of the most well-known passages of the Odyssey (singing XII) is when Ulysses encounters the Sirens:

The Sirens will attain before,

Anyone fascinating that the Lydians their

With his bow sailing touches.

Whoever grabs the shores recklessly

The Sirens, and n’ode singing to him

Neither the bride faithful, nor the dear children

Will be meeting on the thresholds in the party.

The Sirens sitting in a beautiful meadow,

They send a witty song from the lips,

What attracts the passeggier …….

Blythe sirens ….

In more recent times, those same characteristics of seduction, lure, charm have become what they define a woman beautiful and mysterious, a little femme fatale, charming, ambiguous, enigmatic, often dressed with wonderful dresses worn as a second skin, precious and a little princely, but much more sexy, in a nutshell, in the collective imagination, Siren is the term that indicates a woman “special”, a woman / woman to whom all of us, at least once, we would like to look like.

Sirens Vintage Postcards

Personally I think the fascination that the sirens have on us is also due to their hybrid and contradictory nature, just like the human. Even we human beings sometimes we are “unresolved” , we like the sirens probably because we see ourselves a bit.

Kristen McMenamy photographer Tim Walker for W Magazine

So what are the Sirens? Creatures that can not be defined, for this reason interesting, a symbol of freedom, freedom conscious, perhaps the most difficult to achieve.